DISADVANTAGES OF FOREIGN IMPORTS 105 



turnips, lettuce, kidney-beans, and field rhubarb. 

 Of vegetable-marrows the quantity produced in the 

 summer of 1905 was so great that, as one grower 

 at Biggleswade assured me, ' thousands of tons were 

 left to rot on the fields because marrows had become a 

 glut on the market, and it did not pay to gather them. 

 I myself,' added my informant, 'had only two pickings, 

 and I left about 200 tons of marrows where they had 

 grown. Any number could have been bought for 

 2d. the dozen, or 55. the ton (representing fifty dozen), 

 even if they could not have been had for the asking.' 

 Carrots are grown around Biggleswade on hundreds of 

 acres, and brussels sprouts on thousands. There are 

 fields of kidney-beans, of red cabbage, of parsley, of 

 parsnips, and of other things besides. Onions, too, are 

 still grown in fields, though here there has been a great 

 falling off owing to foreign competition. 



At one time about 2,000 acres in the district in 

 question were devoted to onions, and some of the 

 growers made at the rate of 100 per acre, while 

 employment was found for a large number of people 

 in peeling onions used for pickling. One firm alone 

 employed between 300 and 400 women at this work for 

 a period of three months in the year. But the English 

 growers can now hardly compete with their Dutch 

 rivals, who send to the Stratford market onions that are 

 sold at 35. 3d. per cwt., as against the los. or 155. 

 per cwt. which represented the old English rate. So 

 the onion-growing industry around Biggleswade has 

 declined to about one-tenth what it formerly was, and 

 most of the people to whom, directly or indirectly, 

 it gave employment have had to find something else 

 to do. Like conditions apply to red cabbage and 

 cauliflowers grown for pickling, for of these products 

 also foreign competition has reduced the output 



